Free IVF for all as postcode lottery ends

Campaigners for childless couples yesterday welcomed proposals by the Government's health watchdog to give all infertile women under the age of 40 the right to free IVF treatment.

The draft recommendation, by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which is expected to be implemented next year, would entitle thousands of women to six cycles of treatment totalling about £15,000 each.

The guidance, which is likely to cost the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds, would mean an end to the "postcode lottery" under which eligibility for fertility treatment depends on the varying rules set by local health authorities.

There are 27,000 cycles of IVF treatment each year in Britain, but only one in five is paid for by the NHS. The cost is estimated at £70 million.

Dr Simon Fishel, an IVF specialist at the Care at the Park clinic in Nottingham, estimated that the demand would increase by at least 50 per cent if IVF became free across the NHS, costing at least £100 million, or possibly more. He welcomed the move towards free treatment. "This is brilliant news. For too long one disease, infertility, has been discriminated against wholesale," he said. "If this happens, it will bring us into line with other Western nations."

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Sheena Young, the spokesman for the National Fertility Support Network, said: "Everyone should be entitled to free fertility on the NHS, and we welcome the fact that NICE is producing these guidelines. The current system is completely unfair and the quicker this postcode lottery is ended the better." Phil Holm, 38, and his wife Julia, 37, from Hatfield in Hertfordshire, who run a support group for people having fertility treatment, also welcomed the proposals.

The couple, who have two daughters, Emily, eight, and Susannah, three, spent £36,000 on nine courses of IVF because it was not offered by their local health trust. "We have been fighting for years to see the introduction of a system which provides the same chance for everyone, no matter where you live," Mrs Holm said.

"On top of the horrible burden of being unable to have children naturally, there is the financial burden of spending thousands of pounds."

The huge cost of free IVF immediately raised the question of whether the NHS could afford it. A spokesman for the Department of Health said the Government would honour any final rulings by NICE, whatever the cost. "NICE guidance is factored into NHS spending plans and, if it recommends that IVF is available on the NHS, then people can expect to receive it," she said.

If any local health authorities, now called primary care trusts, refuse to pay for the treatments, in theory the Health Secretary has the power to make the offending PCTs pay up.

Opposition MPs warned, however, that the extra cost to the NHS would inevitably mean cuts elsewhere. Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said there was not enough money to provide free IVF for everyone without cuts elsewhere in NHS services. "I welcome that there's going to be a more rational approach to fertility treatment but there will be a price to pay," he said.

Dr Liam Fox, the shadow health secretary, attacked what he called the "haphazard" system for treatment policy decisions. "This is a classic example of where NICE makes decisions about which treatments ought to be available yet has no responsibility or power to make the necessary resources available," he said.

Dr Richard Sullivan, the head of clinical programmes at Cancer Research UK, said it was unlikely that funding would be diverted from high-profile diseases such as cancer. "Instead it could come from services like mental health that are not highly political," he said.